Japan to follow NASA's path in altering orbit of asteroids with Hayabusa 2 probe: Reports

Following on NASA's footsteps, Japan's space agency is trying to test technology to intercept two distant asteroids with its Hayabusa 2 probe. While the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has not confirmed if the probe will try to change the course of the asteroids, but experts said it could happen at the end of the mission, reports said.

The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft was launched in December 2014 and it touched down on asteroid Ryugu in February 2019. After delivering the asteroid samples to Earth in 2020, it was redirected to the asteroid 2001 CC21 which it is scheduled to rendezvous with in 2026. The probe will then move on to the asteroid 1998 KY26 for a meeting in 2031.

JAXA says that the asteroid 1998 KY26, which is about 30 metres in diameter and is orbiting the sun, is in the class of 'fast rotating asteroids' since it rotates every 10 minutes.

According to the agency, there are many asteroids about the same size which could collide with Earth in the future and thus testing a deflection technology using Hayabusa 2 could save humans an Armageddon.

With a similar objective, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission on November 24, 2021 and it collided with 530-feet-wide asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022. Dimorphos was a small Moonlet of a bigger asteroid Didymos and the collision caused its orbit to change by 30 minutes, thus ruling the mission a success.

NASA has said that a similar technology at much bigger scale could save Earth from a planet-killing asteroid in the future.